The Belcher Mansion of Gainesville

The Belcher Mansion in Gainesville (in the background is the Methodist Church, so the photographer is facing southward). This house became a woman's religious college in its later life (Cattle Raiser's Museum).

This widely-shared photograph depicts the very fancy mansion in Gainesville, Cooke County, Texas, that once housed members of John and Clara (nee Easley) Belcher. The Belchers didn't live in Gainesville very long, but left some historic traces in North Texas. And because this photograph has been shared but not researched as much, I thought I'd give it a go!

The Belchers were stock traders/ranchers, but upon coming to Gainesville in 1875, they faced trouble. John Belcher accused some men in Denton County of branding some of his 50,000 strong herd. The Denton men accused him of doing the same, and set out to lynch John. This apparently did not happen, because by the 1880s, John Belcher was living and doing alright.

For example: If you've ever driven past Belcherville, a small hamlet on highway 82 west of Nocona in Montague County, you'd have been within the center of their cattle ranch. They held over 10,000 acres, accumulated when they came to Cooke County in the 1870s after living and buying properties in Grayson County. When the Gainesville, Henrietta, and Western Railroad made its plans to come through (with help from John Belcher, one of its investors) the ranch, the Belchers incorporated a town in 1887 -- first named Belcher, then Belcherville.

Belcherville's beginnings in 1887 via John Belcher, owner of the above-pictured mansion, found in the Fort Worth Daily Gazette of 1887. Belcherville became a ghost town by the 1930s.

The Belchers were also investors in the Gainesville National Bank, the street car line, and (I'm assuming here) gave their name to the Belcher School, a private/public school that opened and closed in the 1890s -- it's now the site of a football field at Andrews/Potter Street.

Their house was one of Gainesville's largest. It was built at some point in the 1880s at North Dixon and Belcher (of course!) streets -- its recorded as fully complete in a Sanborn map from 1888. But by the 1890s, this mansion had become a Synodical College (Presbyterian) for women and then, by the 1900s, Sacred Heart Academy. Between 1908 and 1913, however, the house was gone. Since the mansion took up half of a city block, in its stead came three smaller but equally pretty cottages. Interestingly , the high curb that initially surrounded the mansion is still present.

The Belcher school in Gainesville was a private endeavor, but held classes as a public school for white children, too. Today, its site is a football field. This is the Sanborn map from 1892.

The mansion as it appeared on a Sanborn map from 1888.

In the 1890s, the Belcher mansion became a Presbyterian college (Gainesville Daily Hesperian, 1891), By 1902, it was called Sacred Heart Academy. Note that the high curb and iron fence are still there -- today, if you find yourself walking on the sidewalk of North Dixon Street at Belcher Street in Gainesville, you'll encounter this same curb.

By the 1900 census, the Belchers were living in Henrietta, Clay County, Texas and then, for a while, in Ryan, Jefferson County, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). This is when they tried to officially establish membership in the Choctaw Nation (Mississippi Band of Choctaw) through Clara Belle Easley Belcher's father, but were rejected in 1902. This was a common practice for North Texas cattlemen, who sought to run their stock on the communal lands of the Choctaws and Chickasaws (such as Ike Cloud, another Gainesville rancher). This was one of the reasons for the establishment of the Dawes Commission of the 1890s and 1900s, which sought to establish bona-fide citizenship for the Choctaws and Chickasaws.

Ten years later, the Belchers were living at 1109 Milwaukee Street, Plainview, Hale County, Texas. They had migrated westward to continue in the stock trade, but their home was decidedly less substantial. John and Clara Belcher died and were buried in the town's cemetery in the 1930s.

Just one photograph can reveal so much!

Clara Belle Easley Belcher attempted to claim Choctaw citizenship in 1900, but was rejected in 1902 (Dawes Commission Records).